Salah Marei

One of the greatest decorators in the history of Egyptian cinema, He was born in Mahalla al-Kubra in 1942. His dream from the beginning was to become an architect, but his presence in the provinces meant that he did not know the dates for applying for the engineering batch until after the exams had ended, and after he heard about the existence of a special department for decoration in the Cinema Institute - which had been newly established at that time - he applied after learning that decoration was almost identical to architecture. He began working as a decorator at the age of twenty-two, as a set designer for director Helmy Halim’s film “Life is Sweet” in 1964. He had a strong friendship with the director (Shadi Abdel Salam) since the latter was teaching him at the Film Institute, and Mar’i owes him much of what he achieved in the art of decoration, which culminated in their masterpiece “The Mummy”, which was presented in 1975 and is considered by many to be the most complete and visually stunning Egyptian film, as it is considered a true masterpiece that will not be repeated in terms of the aspects of image, decoration and pure Pharaonic atmosphere that resulted from a partnership. Between geniuses like Shadi Abdel Salam - director - and Salah Marei - interior designer. He made a large number of important films alongside The Mummy, most notably (A Song on the Passage, A Little Love, a Lot of Violence, and Sons of Silence), while his last film was (Alzheimer) in 2010. He acted twice, one in a short role in Ali Abdel Khaleq’s film “A Song on the Passage,” and the other was starring in director Sherif El-Bendari’s short film “A Succulent Hour” in his graduation project from the Film Institute in 2007. Salah Merhi died in Cairo on Thursday, March 3, 2011.